Why Not!

These are the first words that a two year old tells their parents and is the beginning of that person asserting their authority over themselves. The parent then stunts that first ideas of free-will that child might have by saying something akin to ‘don’t talk back to me’. This naturally stops the child from asking any questions over the parent’s decisions and authority over the child. The child then continues to obey until they reach a much older age of the teenage years and the question of ‘why not’ begins to be heard more loudly than before and eventually the child gains equal authority with their parents when they reach adulthood.

What if that child never asked ‘why not’? That child would then grow up to be obedient to there parent’s will and to the will of anyone else since they never ask ‘why not’ to anyone. The right to question others is not only beneficial to obtaining truth but also in establishing equality between two people because the decision someone makes for someone else must pass mustard which can only happen people ask why.

This simple question is nothing more than a justification as to why someone has to comply with someone else’s authority and without that justification then that person’s authority is nullified. It is the beginning of free-will because when we ask why we are simply asking for a reason that is justifiable for us to follow the command and without that internal justification there is no reason to comply with that person’s authority. We will not comply with another person’s authority for the same reason a two year old who asks ‘why not’ will not comply with their parents wishes without that two year olds consent.

We can see that the right to reason establishes an equality between all people and since this right is inherent with all people then all people have an equal authority with one another. This is why the concept of all men are created equal was established during the same time period that we called the Age of Reason. Once people asked the lords and kings why they have to comply with their authority the king’s authority started to vanish as he had to explain why to his subjects and without that justification the subjects had no reason to comply with the king’s authority.

It became pretty clear that the only kind of government that could exist is one that existed with the consent of the governed since a state could not force the population to comply with its orders without any internal justification from the people. The only kind of government that could do the will of the people was a democratic government since it was ruled by the majority.

A democratic government could only act as the people wanted but even that would violate the equality of all people since the people in power could make laws over the people themselves. This was not the equality of all people but only the equality of the governed since the governed would have to comply with the laws created by other people. The only way all people can be equal is to have a constitution whose authority was above the government in which, the government and the people had to comply with its laws. No law could be passed by the government that conflicted with the supreme law of the land or what is better known as the constitution.

The constitution is the supreme power which makes it easier to ask ‘why not’ to those in power since we are all equals in the eyes of the supreme law of the land. The people in power had to justify their laws with respect to the constitution and without that justification there is no reason for any of us obey their laws when the only law we have to obey is the constitution itself.